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Tomato Sauce for Macaroni or Spaghetti

A tomato-based sauce for macaroni or spaghetti made with tomatoes, onion, butter, flour, salt, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tomato Sauce for Macaroni or Spaghetti

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the tomatoes and sliced onion in a pot for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the tomato mixture through a strainer.

  3. In a pan, mix the butter and flour together.

  4. Gradually add the strained tomato to the butter and flour mixture.

  5. Stir in the salt and white pepper, and let it boil for 5 minutes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Tomato + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body, acidity and flavour of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with the butter and tomato liquid.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens in the tomatoes.

The step that matters

Gradually add the strained tomato to the butter and flour mixture. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour smooth and prevents lumps, because flour disperses evenly only when its starch granules are separated before they swell and thicken.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, butter, flour):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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